A New Home, Part 2

Posted on 04 Jan 2021 @ 12:11pm by Ensign Kat Walker & Lieutenant Madalene Sabine

1,164 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Ab Intra
Location: Cargo Bay Two, Deck 27 / Fighterbay

It was a delicate operation, on multiple levels. First, to partially disassemble the stricken, derelict walker to extricate the AI core. Then to move it across various decks to the main fighter hangar. And finally to place it inside its new home, the modified Valkyrie fighter. All in all the operation took nearly an hour, being exceedingly careful at every stage, taking their time - Lieutenant Madalene Sabine, PO3 Lorelei Romanov and various techs they had roped in to help.

The core itself was a strange and intriguing thing. A block of crystal, just over two by two by two feet, with billions of faint traces etched along the surface, going down into the structure. While it was in the derelict walker and still receiving power it was pulsing faintly, showing a stand by stage. Flickering traces, light blue energy faint - barely visible. But Kat had told them that it would be alright to disconnect.

Moving the surprisingly heavy block was a tricky task. A few close calls, but the anti-grav cradle held and it was delivered to the fighterbay intact. Not a scratch on the crystalline structure. Not one crack or chip, as Kat had warned them that any damage would interfere with her functioning, from losing partial functionality to outright irreparable and complete loss of function. Such precious a cargo, unique, one of a kind. Irreplaceable. One final instruction Kat had left them was to leave the derelict walker with active power for the time being, despite there no longer being an AI core.

For now though, the difficult and tense operation was almost at an end. The AI core was seated in the new cradle. In the right orientation even. All that was left now was to secure the lid to the cradle, that would cushion and lock the core inside and provide additional fiberoptic interface elements necessary to allow the Federation technology cradle and fighter to talk with, and be controlled by, the alien technology AI core.

"Good work everyone," Madalene said with exhausted smile, wiping sweat off of her brow, "petty officer if you would do the honors at batting down the hatch?" Madalene said handing the tool to the petty officer.

"Sure thing, sir," Lorelei said affably. It had certainly been one of the more delicate procedures she had been a part of, but the Valkyries and the Hornets could be delicate beasts as well. This, of course, had been somewhat different given that this was not a piece of tech she had any experience with but still... They'd done it. She turned to the new creation and set the lid, finalizing it all and setting it up for the reappearance of their 'patient.'

As the lid closed, circuits activated, sending signals to various clamps that click click clicked into position, a soft hiss was heard as the core's cradle was hermetically sealed. The fighter's reactor spun up with a soft, barely audible whine, powering the craft. Various small control lights flickered red, orange, then green, as systems normalized. A soft voice sounded, speaking in an alien language, though the computer translated.

"System anomaly. BIOS error. Unexpected hardware configuration. Entering diagnostics mode. Seeking ... Seeking ... Seeking ... Scanning hardware. Analyzing."

It was Kat's voice, trying to find her way through a maze of new IRQs, DMAs, addresses, pipelines, going through her normal POST - Poewr On Self Test. In her current state she didn't have access to any of her memories, those were still in the memory banks in her derelict, wrecked walker. This was why she'd asked Madalene and Lorelei to keep that powered, so that she could access them and remember, once she'd initialized all the new hardware she had to play with now.

"Found new BIOS. Analyzing. Power nominal. Found storage banks. Condition, empty. Found sensor hardware." The fighter's sensor suite and the cameras installed in the cradle twitched erratically for a moment before calming down, movement smoothing over. "Calibrating. Found communication hardware. Initializing. Calibrating." Still in that alien language. "Found unknown signal. Found Drul Anu signal. Designation, Kinetic Ambulatory Trooper, Model 2501. Accessing ... Found database. Downloading ... Complete. Analyzing ... "

A mere moment later, though it had seemed like an eternity to Madalene and Lorelei, the fighter's new holographic emitter flickered and activated, and the familiar form of Kat's humanoid avatar appeared, a neutral expression on her features as she initialized, before settling into a soft but content smile. " ... It worked," she spoke in Federation Standard.

Madalene let out a long sigh, the breath that she was unaware that she was holding, "....good good," Madalene said with a smile, "Kat, do you mind if I run a few diagnostics, this way we'll have a base to look back at," Madalene said still smiling glad that it worked.

"If you want," Kat replied after a brief moment consideration. "I'm still working on analyzing and calibrating though, that'll likely be a while yet. And then there are flight tests to be done. Communications suite needs testing, targeting computers, weapons, cooling systems, power system stress test, still a lot of work to do before I consider myself at nominal function."

Madalene nodded, "yes of course, I just want to have base readings before we start the tests," she repeated, "....seeing as you are our first alien tech along with alien sentient AI, I want just want to make sure we have all the data we can to help either repair or continue to expand your horizons," she added with a smile.

A nod from Kat "Alright, you can run your diagnostics, just be aware that they will return many errors. De-synchronizations, function call failures, host service errors, things like that." She seemed hesitant.

Madalene tapped a few buttons to start the diagnostics, and setting up a large cache area in the database for all the data, "....alright should only take a few moments, so what testing would you like to do first after the diagnostics?"

"No testing yet," Kat shook her head. "I still have a lot of calibrating and diagnosing to do, find all my new hardware, writing drivers, things like that. It'll be some time before I'm ready for testing yet," she spoke, furrowing her brows a bit. "This is a whole new body for me, so many new things to discover, identify, organize. That's why I'd rather have waited with diagnostics as well until I've actually fully integrated."

"Not really something those of us with these organic bodies can imagine too easily," Lorelei commented. "Receiving an entirely new form like this."

"Oh yes yes of course, sorry I am just so happy that we got through the toughest part," she said giving Kat a smile, "...and like I said I just want make sure we are here to help you in whatever way we can," she added her smile widening.

=/= To be continued..... =/=

Lt Madalene Sabine/COps & Ens Kat Walker/Fighter Pilot & PO3 Lorelei Romanov/Fighter Technician (NPC apb Capt Thorne)

 

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